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'Recovery' leaving jobless stranded

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
08/16/2013 06:39:05 AM EDT

Welcome to the new economy, where a rising tide no longer lifts all boats. Although the real estate and stock markets continue to ride a strong wave of recovery since the Great Recession, the job market remains a packed rowboat marooned on a sandbar at ebb tide. For people who can't find a job -- and their families -- there is no economic recovery.

The latest numbers from the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce development are worrisome. Massachusetts' unemployment rate, 7.4 percent, is actually worse than it was this time last year, up from 6.9 percent. Massachusetts even in the worst of times has prided itself on having a more robust job market compared with the rest of the country, largely because of strong employment in the high-tech sector. State officials have been quick to point out that our unemployment rate was always markedly better than the nation's. Our 7.4 percent rate is only slightly lower than the national rate of 7.6 percent -- the smallest difference in four years.

The numbers are even worse here in North Central Massachusetts, where Leominster's jobless rate increased a full percentage point, from 8.7 percent to 9.7 percent, and Fitchburg's rate climbed from 10.3 to 10.9 percent. The unemployment rate for the Fitchburg-Leominster-Gardner jumped to 9.8 percent, up from 9.3 percent the year before. In the Sentinel & Enterprise's coverage area, only Lancaster, Townsend and Westminster saw their numbers improve from last year; Shirley's remained the same.

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Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, said it now takes typical jobless workers about 30 weeks to land a new one. "We have never seen anything like this," he told us recently. And the jobs people are find are often part-time positions. Sum noted that the spike in the number of people looking for work in June suggested that people were seeing their unemployment benefits run out.

Mike Gerry, deputy director of the North Central Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board, said the region has been hit harder than other areas of the state in part because some out-of-work residents have shown a reluctance to travel for low-paying jobs. "For the lower-paying jobs, it's not economically feasible to spend half your paycheck on transportation costs," Gerry noted.

Although the Sentinel & Enterprise has been wary about casinos coming to Massachusetts, we have said the strongest argument for them is their potential to put people back to work. Such is the case for welcoming The Cordish Companies' proposal to build a $200 million slots casino off Jungle Road in Leominster. Cordish estimates the casino would bring about 500 permanent jobs and about 600 temporary construction jobs.

For people of North Central Massachusetts struggling in the new economy, those numbers represent a significant push to get the employment rowboat off the sandbar.

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